Um, Mr. Meadows?

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Last night I was hosting the open mic at iO when I looked in the doorway and noticed that Tim Meadows had silently walked in. If you don't know who Meadows is please click on the link and then go do yourself a favor and brush up on your comedy knowledge. I've seen Meadows before at iO, but rest assured I was more than thrilled to see him again.

After I brought up a few more comics and he was still hanging around I decided I might as well go say hello, I mean that's what a polite host would do right? I thought so. This is what entailed,

"Um, Mr. Meadows?"

"Yea, hello." He was very polite. But he was probably thinking I was an annoying dumb fan about to ask for a photo or something. Which I am, but I restrained myself.

"My name is Taylor and I'm co-hosting this mic, any chance you want to go up?"

He looked to the ground and shuffled his feet, "No, no, I mean maybe. I was thinking about it."

Tim Meadows looked nervous. And I became an even bigger fan.

"We'd be honored to have you."

"Looks to me like the entire audience is comedians."

"I'd say it's about 50/50."

That was a lie, it was about 80/20- meaning more comics than real people. Comics hate telling jokes to other comics. But when you're Tim Meadows who cares?! We were going to laugh with him and be on board no matter what.

But still he resisted. "I'm trying to think of something to say, but...I don't know... Do you have a long list?" He asked, still very uncertain of himself. I had no idea celebs still got nervous. I mean I've heard they're real people, but I've never really believed it, you know?

"We've got about 12 comics left." Again, another lie. We had about 20 left at this point.

"Yea, see I don't really want to take away from them."

At this point I could tell he was so uneasy about going up I didn't want to press it. "No problem, let us know if you change your mind. By the way, I saw you last summer, as the monologist."

He looked at me like I was crazy.

"Here at iO? You know, in the Armando show? In August?" So then I got nervous and started making statements that ended like questions.

"Oh yea, yea." And every time he said yea yea I thought of the Ladies Man. I know that's lame of me, but I couldn't help it.

"It was one of my highlights." That's what I said in reference to seeing him this past summer. What does that even mean? I don't know. I'm an idiot.

He smiled and put his head down.

And that's the thing I love about comedians. Sure some of them are loud obnoxious clowns, but most of them are just quiet humble people. They get in the spotlight when it's time, and then disappear back into the shadows when it's over.

Meadows never got on stage. But it was fun for a few minutes to hope he would.

That is so cool! It's always so interesting to see how people behave outside of the spotlight. This reminds me of a story Chris Gethard wrote about the time Robin Willaims showed up at UCB and very shyly asked to be a part of that night's show. It's such a contrast from how you'd expect these wonderful comedians to be.

Tim Meadows is sitting on the lounge behind me and he isn't black, he a short and has a a near shaved head and isn't that funny although at times he thinks he is but guess what I love him anyway.........lol